The real estate mogul and ex-host of the US version of The Apprentice told John Dickerson on CBS’ Face the Nation that high CEO pay is a “complete joke”, but admitted it is difficult to do much to change it.
“It does bug me. It’s very hard if you have a free enterprise system to do anything about that,” he said in the interview on Sunday. “You know the boards of companies are supposed to do it but I know companies very well and the CEO puts in all his friends… and they get whatever they want you know because their friends love sitting on the board.”
His position may come as a shock, but his sentiments on the issue of CEO-to-worker pay may be a tactic for attracting voters
“That’s the system that we have and it’s a shame and it’s disgraceful,” he added.
In the US, the average CEO’s salary is more than 350 times higher than the amount the average worker takes home.
While the multi-billionaire was scathing in his assessment of corporate pay, he did not offer up a solution for fixing the issue.
Instead, he chose to take a swipe at Macy’s, saying: “You’ll take a company like, I could say Macy’s or I could say many other companies, where they put in their friends as the head of the company and they get whatever they want.”
However, his decision to attack the retailer could have something to do with the fact that it decided to stop selling his menswear line after he appeared to label Mexican migrants as drug-runners and rapists during his presidential nomination announcement speech earlier this year.
His position may come as a shock, but his sentiments on the issue of CEO-to-worker pay may be a tactic for attracting voters. Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders has garnered a lot of support from the electorate for taking on the perceived inequalities created by corporate America, in particular, high CEO pay.
Trump concluded the interview with a preview of his new tax plan, which will lower corporation tax in order to encourage multi-nationals to stop using tax havens and bring taxable revenue to US shores.
“Corporations rightfully don’t bring it back because they have a massive tax to pay,” he said. “We’ve got to make it so they can bring it back. And I’ll be bringing it back and we’re going to have a lot of money pouring into the United States if I’m elected.”